


Heavy Lifting

by pintowrites



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Cute, F/M, Fluff, Insecurity, Risk of being caught, very mild angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-28
Updated: 2013-10-28
Packaged: 2017-12-30 17:27:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1021403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pintowrites/pseuds/pintowrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Morgana?"</p><p>Arthur rolls his eyes and sasses him for asking, and Merlin is used to it, really. He should be by now.</p><p>“Yes, Morgana. She needs you to lift … something.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heavy Lifting

" _Merlin?_ " 

Arthur scoffs at his sister before he remembers she can give as good as she gets. 

"Yes, _Merlin._ He can't be _entirely_ useless if you've kept him around this long. What's it to you?"

She panics, for the briefest moment. Did she rush that last sentence? Did Arthur notice the flush on her cheeks and the uncertainty in her voice because she _knows_ , christ, she _knows_ this is so, _so_ subtly risky. 

Luckily Arthur isn't nearly as observant as he'd like to think he is. She knows this, too. She should know better. She should be _confident_ in this because this is _Arthur_ and he really, truly, is a dollophead. 

She smiles fondly to herself at the insult that makes no sense at all, isn't comprised of real words of any kind, and is still absolutely perfect because it's _his_. 

She sighs and places a hand on Arthur's arm. 

"It's just for the _day,_ Arthur. You won't miss him that much, I assure you."

"What's wrong with _Gwen?_ Tiring of your own servants?"

She lies, and it should bother her how smooth it was, how easy it came to her, but it doesn't.

"I need someone for grunt work. Heavy lifting ... and all that. You can see why I'd prefer Merlin, yes?"

He dubiously agrees.

~

"Morgana?"

Arthur rolls his eyes and sasses him for asking, and Merlin is used to it, really. He should be by now.

" _Yes,_ Morgana. She needs you to lift ... something."

Arthur looks, for a moment, like he got lost and confused within his own sentence. He waves his hand around after a few moments pass, dismissing his lack of knowledge for the unknown task set before his servant. 

Merlin shrugs, tries to be casual, says his standard, _daily_ , "Yes, Sire," and straightens his neckerchief, pats down his shirt, and brushes his shoulder off before he catches himself. His cheeks were surely pink and he turns on his heels to exit Arthur's chambers and hopes, _prays_ that Arthur wasn't feeling particularly observant today. He never is. 

~

"Morgana."

There's different emphasis here than there was when he said her name earlier, feigning surprise, to Arthur. There's subtext, sub _tone_.

He knocked on her door with pink cheeks and sweaty palms, rolling on the balls of his feet until she opened it and her name rolled off of his tongue; like it was something he said all the time, another "Yes, Sire" in his vocabulary. 

She replies. 

"Merlin."

He swears she stutters.

He lets himself in and he knows he doesn't need to ask for permission to enter. 

He plays along with the façade she's created, convinces himself he's being coy, _suave_ even, by doing so. He really just wants a little extra time to work off his nerves. This wasn't the first time, but it hardly matters. He's always sweaty palms and stuttered words, flushed cheeks and butterflies in his stomach. This was _Morgana_. The nerves never ceased.

"I hear you need something lifted?"

He puts his hands behind his back and rolls on his feet again, turns away from her even, looking anywhere but her because _gods_ , she's gorgeous today, she's gorgeous _every_ day, and he didn't deserve this. 

She wasn't gracious to his nerves today.

He feels her hands touch his shoulders from behind and slide slowly down his arms and he visibly shudders from the contact. He wasn't _ready_ , not quite yet.

" _Merlin._ "

She turns him around and it's too easy, he's putty in her hands, he's practically _melting_ and he makes eye contact, meets her gaze which is full of lust and need and devious intention. 

She kisses him, and he knows she's on her tip toes, feels her clutching at his shirt with white knuckles. His butterflies stop fluttering.

He settles, for the most part. He settles into her and closes his eyes, drops his shoulders which were unnaturally, uncomfortably high, falls out of the façade too easily, he thinks, for a moment.

~

" _Merlin._ "

It's barely a whisper but he hears it. He always does.

Time is precious and he wastes none of it. He knows that passing voices in the corridor could, at any moment, grow too close for comfort. He knows that Morgana could, at any moment, wonder what exactly she was doing with someone like Merlin, _Merlin_ of all people, and it would be over.

So he doesn't waste his time, their time, because every moment could feasibly be their last.

He's touching her just right, he thinks, judging by the painfully perfect look on her face and the pink on her cheeks, the buck of her hips when he crooks two fingers inside of her and she whimpers his name. 

She had pulled him over to her four poster because a small part of him can never make the walk there. His legs turn to lead and his nerves get the better of him, always. So she tugs on his neckerchief with a wicked smile on ruby red lips and pinches his elbow by accident when she goes to grab his sleeve. She apologizes. He laughs. The nerves ease.

They have a routine once she finally gets him there.

He lets her untie his neckerchief first because he knows she likes to kiss him there, knows she likes to leave marks to kiss better later and he doesn't mind. He lets her slide his shirt over his head because he knows she likes the look of him, likes to run her hands down his chest and she occasionally leaves marks there, too. He doesn't mind that either. 

He goes under her dress because he can't get it off by himself and he knows there will be nothing in his way beneath it. She's learned, somewhere along the way, to make it easy for him. 

And here they are, and she's whispering his name again between breathy gasps and heated moans and he doesn't get to add another finger before she stops him with her hand tight on his wrist. 

~

"Merlin."

There is intent in her voice this time, intent in her blown pupils and heavy eyelids. 

They shuffle and move and tangle limbs, lifted hips and lifted arms and it's a struggle, always, to get her dress off. 

They manage. 

He takes in the sight of her for as long as she lets him, but she isn't patient. He isn't either, but _gods,_ she is beautiful. She's beautiful and vulnerable and it's ludicrous, really, that someone like her chooses, honestly _chooses_ , to be with someone like him.

She must know he's thinking these things, she has to, every time. Because every time she splays her hands on either side of his face and drags him down to her, his chest collides with her own and they kiss like they might need to stop at any minute because they might.

She drags her tongue across his teeth before she pulls away for air, before she pushes him back up onto his knees and sits up beside him. She smiles and it's wicked, it's beautiful, before she pulls at the laces on his trousers with both hands.

He gasps, he _hisses_ through his teeth when she pulls him free and slides a hand down the length of him, until he's squirming and grasping at the blankets beneath of them, until he finds it hard to stay balanced on his knees like this, until her name escapes him, ragged and desperate. 

~

" _Morgana...!_ "

It was a warning, more than anything, and she knows. She smiles and leans forward, bites his lower lip and tugs on him one last time before she lies back against the blankets, hair awry on the pillow behind her, knees bent and legs spread and every last bit of her _ready_ for him. 

It was an invitation. He knows.

He crawls, _slides_ towards her, kisses his way up her torso, biting at a pert nipple and sucking on her throat and reveling in the noises he gets in return. But much like her, he isn't too patient. 

He balances on top of her, hands on either side of her shoulders and he lines himself up at her entrance and wastes no time, because he knows they have so little of it. 

He's completely inside of her and he shuts his eyes, lets his mouth hang open for the briefest moment before he bites her shoulder, she gasps, and he goes and he goes and he _gives_.

It's fast and it's rough, and they're uncoordinated and messy. It's _heated_ and their skin is glossed with sweat, with spit from sloppy kisses, with ruby red smeared from her lips. It's louder than it ought to be and they know better, they _do_ , but this time around he can't help but to shout her name and she can't help but to cry out his in return. 

She's meeting him halfway with every thrust and it's driving him closer and closer with every grind of her hips, every drag of her nails down his back. 

They don't last long, once they get to this point. They never do. He bears his weight on one arm and snakes his other between them, grinds the heel of his palm against her clit until she's curling her toes, coming apart underneath of him, trembling and shouting his name. 

He follows suit moments after with a startled and sudden jerk of his hips, muffling a " _gods, Morgana,_ " into her shoulder. 

~

They stare at her ceiling for a while, sweaty and pink and out of breath. He rolled off of her to lie by her side, arms and calves touching. He usually does. It was routine. 

The threat of someone knocking, of Gwen walking in unannounced, of being caught, _heard_ , was still very real and, yet, at the very back of both of their minds for the time being. 

He twiddles his thumbs out of habit and gently clears his throat to break the silence. He turns his head on the pillow to look at her with a shy and silly grin on his face.

"I'll have to move some furniture around."

She turns her head to look at him in kind and smiles back, albeit looking a bit confused.

"Whatever for?"

He shrugs his shoulders, best he can while lying down and suddenly feels very aware of himself, of where he was, of what they just did. It was another part of their routine, how she crushes his insecurities with something as simple as a smile at the end of it all.

"I did come here to do some heavy lifting, after all," he reminds her.

She laughs.

So does he.

**Author's Note:**

> Read it on tumblr; http://pintowrites.tumblr.com/post/65309004297/heavy-lifting
> 
> Read it on LJ; http://pintowrites.livejournal.com/1517.html


End file.
